No 86  January 2016
Contents:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Fire Precautions and Means of Escape
Sickness & Injury: the Osborne judgements!
Recourse rebranded
Turning out cold again
Fieldwork in remote places
University fined for H&S breaches
Quick updates
1. Fire precautions and means of
escape
Fire precautions have been, and continue
to be some of the best regulated aspects
of health, safety and welfare at work, but
universities particularly have experienced
some pretty destructive fires over the
years. Glasgow School of Art lost the
Charles Rennie MacIntosh library in May
2014; 2014 was also a bad year for
chemistry labs at Nottingham and York,
and Southampton lost a world-class
computer science and research building in
October 2005. There were 2 fires in 48
hours at the University of Westminster
Harrow campus in July 2007; in May 2001
City University lost the top floor and roof
of a Grade 2 listed building, and the
Bower Building at Glasgow caught fire in
in October 2001, followed by Strathclyde
in November 2003. This list of major fires
is by no means exhaustive.
On the positive side, there have been
remarkably few injuries in such events.
Either the buildings have been empty, or
the fire escape procedures have worked
as they should, as in the events at
Westminster University in April 2013, or
Abertay University as recently as 3rd
November 2015. Student accommodation
burned down in Bristol in October 2015,
but everyone got out safely, although 121
students had to be found alternative
accommodation.
Significant changes took place across the
UK when the old Fire Precautions
legislation was repealed 11 years ago. A
common factor in the different legislative
provisions for England & Wales, Scotland
and Northern Ireland is the requirement
to conduct a suitable and sufficient fire
risk assessment as the basis for
determining the appropriate measures to
take. In all three jurisdictions, the local
fire service is the regulator and enforcer
for universities and colleges, and the vast
majority of other workplaces like shops
and bars that may also be on campus.
England & Wales: The main legislation is
the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order
2005:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2005/
1541/contents/made
The Department for Communities & Local
Government has issued comprehensive
guides to fire risk assessments and other
information for a range of workplaces –
this link is the one for educational
premises generally:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/
system/uploads/attachment_data/file/148
87/fsra-educational-premises.pdf
There are other guidance documents for
Offices, Sleeping accommodation and
places of assembly which might be
relevant. To see a list of all the DCLG
guides go to:
https://www.gov.uk/workplace-firesafety-your-responsibilities/fire-riskassessments
used to be. Previously the employer had
to ask the local fire brigade to make an
inspection visit prior to issuing a fire
certificate that set out the fire precautions
plan. The inspector could require the
employer to make whatever changes in
the workplace were necessary to ensure
maximum levels of safety.
Scotland: the key piece of legislation is
the Fire (Scotland) Act 2005:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2005/5
/contents and Part 2 of the Police and Fire
Reform (Scotland) Act 2012:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2012/8
/contents/enacted supplemented by the
Fire Safety (Scotland) Regulations 2006:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ssi/2006/4
56/contents/made and other legislative
instruments.
Any changes to the workplace without fire
service authorisation would invalidate the
certificate, so the fire service had to
authorise changes and reissue the
certificate. Under the risk assessmentbased regime, now all the employer has
to do is review the fire risk assessment
and update it where necessary, but this
should be based on Building Regulations
and other information, the standards of
which do have an input from the fire
authorities.
Search the www.legislation.gov.uk for Fire
(Scotland) Act 2005 to get the full list.
The Scottish Government has also issued
detailed
guidance
for
educational
premises here:
http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0041/004
18065.pdf
UCU safety reps must be involved in any
moves by the employer to change the fire
safety arrangements, starting with the
risk assessment. Safety reps should also
be closely involved with training plans and
practice evacuations; one UCU rep has
reported a case where the employer has
failed to appoint fire marshals or wardens,
and even cases where some employees
have refused to leave the buildings when
practice
evacuations
take
place;
employers should ensure that such things
don’t happen.
Advice about risk
assessments is available from the local
fire service. It is worth noting that a
number of fire authorities have taken a
harder
line
on
enforcement
and
prosecutions in the recent past. See:
http://www.staylegal.net/top-25expensive-fines-fire-safety-breaches/
Northern Ireland: the main piece of
legislation since November 2010 is the
Fire and Rescue Services (Northern
Ireland) Order 2006 and associated
regulations. See:
http://www.healthandsafetyworksni.gov.u
k/managing_fire_safety for more detailed
guidance. One very useful document is
the Fire Safety Log Book, that contains
lots
of
advice for
managing
fire
precautions and record sheets for key
management
issues
http://www.nifrs.org/firesafe/downloads/F
ire%20Safety%20Log%20Book%20Templ
ate.pdf
2. Sickness & Injury: the Osborne
judgements!
Because of the move away from the
prescriptive standards of the old Fire
Precautions Act, changing the means of
escape for fire and other aspects of fire
precautions is now less restricted than it
a) Industrial Injury Benefits under
threat but no change yet
As part of his July budget statement in
2015, the Chancellor announced that the
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government was initiating a review of the
industrial injuries benefit scheme, and
would report its findings in the November
Spending
Review,
but
no
such
announcement
was
included.
The
Government was considering whether
employers and insurers should play a
greater role in providing support for those
who suffer injury or diseases at work.
www.gov.uk/government/publications/ind
ustrial-injuries-disablement-benefitstechnical-guidance/industrial-injuriesdisablement-benefits-technical-guidance
b) Public sector sickness absence
review announced
As part of the Autumn Statement and
Comprehensive
Spending
Review
in
November, the Government announced a
review of public-sector sickness absence.
This
was
not
announced
in
the
Chancellor’s main speech to Parliament,
but was revealed in the Treasury’s “Blue
Book” published afterwards.
The scheme provides benefits for those
people who have been injured at work
and have suffered some degree of
disability or incapacity, or been made ill
by
certain
prescribed
work-related
conditions. The main benefit is Industrial
Injury Disablement Benefit, (IIDB) and
the benefit is linked to the degree of
disability caused, which is assessed by the
DWP. Some conditions like the invariably
fatal
asbestos-related
disease
mesothelioma automatically attract 100%
- currently £168 a week. That’s hardly
adequate compensation for such serious
injury, but better than nothing. Injuries
causing incapacity assessed at below 14%
are not compensatable.
The Treasury states that the Government
will “review sickness absence in publicsector workforces before consulting on
how to reduce its impact on public service
delivery, and consider legislation where
necessary”. It argued that public-sector
sick pay was estimated to cost around
£4.5 billion a year “and terms are more
generous than typical private-sector
arrangements. It is right that the
Government reviews how the current
systems for managing and compensating
for sickness are working and looks at
what reforms might be needed to move to
a more modern and productive state.”
TUC’s Hugh Robertson reports that the
DWP has found that changing the scheme
is much more complex that it first
appeared, especially as the insurers and
employers raised objections to paying for
the cost of the scheme. The DWP is
therefore taking longer over the review,
but it hasn’t gone away and DWP officials
are still considering options.
How far this review will apply to colleges
and universities is anyone’s guess, given
the increasing lack of definition between
public and private. It does continue the
trend
of
describing
the
continued
worsening of employment conditions as
modernisation to the highest possible
standards. We might be living in the
second Elizabethan era, but it feels
increasingly like the first.
Better news was that there would be
extra money for the Access to Work
scheme to help disabled employees get
back into and remain in work. The
government also propose a White Paper in
2016 that will set out reforms “to improve
support for people with health conditions
One view is that, where employers are
negligent or in breach of their statutory
duty to ensure a safe workplace that
results in harm, then the employer and
their insurers should bear the cost, not
the state. That may well prompt
employers to take worker’s health, safety
and welfare more seriously. We’ll report
more as and when it happens.
For details of how the scheme currently
operates, see:
3
and disabilities, including exploring the
roles of employers, to further reduce the
disability employment gap and promote
integration
across
health
and
employment”. Now what on earth can
that mean?
https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati
ons/spending-review-and-autumnstatement-2015-documents/spendingreview-and-autumn-statement-2015
The standard is in the Workplace Health,
Safety & Welfare Regulations 1992: Reg.
7 – Temperature in Indoor workplaces.
This requires that the temperature in the
workplace is reasonable. The Approved
Code of Practice (ACoP) Paragraph 61
says this should normally be a minimum
of 16o Celcius where the work is
sedentary, but also says this may not be
enough to ensure reasonable comfort; for
many people it isn’t.
3. Recourse rebranded
Premises
management
professional
organisation the Chartered Institute of
Building Services Engineers (CIBSE)
recommends that in educational premises
in winter the temperature should be
between 19o–21o Celcius in classrooms,
lecture theatres and the general areas,
and even warmer in changing rooms. The
Guidance to the Workplace Regulations
quotes CIBSE as an authoritative source.
People do not work effectively when they
are too cold to feel comfortable, and
students don’t concentrate so well, which
can lead to classroom discipline problems.
So here are some ideas to involve
members and employees in the process of
getting conditions improved.
In 2006 the College and University
Support Network (CUSN) was established
with UCU funding assistance.
They
offered support services to staff working
in further and higher education, and. In
2010, CUSN was renamed Recourse.
In 2015, Teacher Support Network,
Recourse and Worklife Support joined
forces to become Education Support
Partnership,
and
the
organisation
continues to offer support to FE and HE
employees. The telephone support line
continues, and is now available as a
Freephone number on 08000 562 561.
Some areas like the Channel Islands
cannot access 08000 numbers, the
alternative is 020 8987 6212. The
Education Support Partnership website
only gives the numbers for England,
Wales and Scotland. They tell us that for
members in Northern Ireland, there are
two different numbers - 08088 020 304
and 0208 987 6213, and will amend their
website to include these numbers.
It’s too cold. What can we do?

For more general information about the
provision see:
https://educationsupportpartnership.org.u
k/telephone-support
4. Turning out cold again
Given the surprising mildness of the
weather so far this autumn, we haven’t
had
so
many
enquiries
about
temperature, but we have had a few. So
here’s a bit of organising advice for reps
to give to members when it is cold.
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Tell your immediate manager that
you don’t consider the temperature
to be reasonable. Confirm this in
writing or by e-mail. Copy your
letter or e-mail to the principal and
the
UCU
health
and
safety
representative. Put “It’s too cold
today” in the subject line of any email. (Employees have a duty
under
the
Management
Regulations (Regulation 14) to
inform the employer in cases
where they reasonably believe
there are shortcomings in their
protective arrangements for health
and safety.)







Ask
your
manager
for
a
thermometer so you can check the
temperature.
Employers
are
required to provide a sufficient
number of thermometers in the
workplace so employees can check
the temperature.
As well as telling the UCU health
and safety representative it isn’t
warm enough, ask them to come
and investigate and raise the issue
with the management.
Find out who else feels cold and
make a collective complaint.
Ask the employer to provide you
with some supplementary heating
– a fan heater or oil-filled radiator
is appropriate in a staff room; a
classroom will need something
larger. This is a legal requirement
on the employer.
Ask student groups what they
think. They can complain as well.
Think about what other action you
could take to persuade the
employer to address the problem
Keep doing it until the problem is
resolved
& safety in fieldwork issued by UCEA to its
member institutions:
http://www.ucea.ac.uk/en/publications/in
dex.cfm/guidance-on-health-and-safetyin-fieldwork and we have passed-on the
link to the Universities Safety and Health
Association (USHA) for information.
6. University fined for H&S
breaches
Cranfield University has been fined after a
worker
suffered
potentially
lifethreatening injuries whilst dismantling an
explosive device.
Swindon magistrates were told that three
employees from the Explosives Research
Section at the Defence Academy of the
University were working to deactivate
former military cluster bomblets in
February 2011. One of them exploded
causing serious injuries to one of the
workers, who suffered severe abdominal
injuries and his right colon which was
penetrated by a shard of metal required
removal after surgery. He also suffered
lacerations to his face and shoulder, and
nerve damage to his right hand.
You should aim to persuade your
employer
to
adopt
the
CIBSE
recommendations of 19o–21o degrees
Celcius as the local standard – make a
bargaining demand.
The HSE investigation found no suitable
risk assessment had been carried out, and
that the university’s management team
were unaware of the process being carried
out by their staff.
5. Fieldwork in remote places
Cranfield University pleaded guilty to
breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and
Safety at Work etc. Act 1974; and Section
4(1) of the Manufacture and Storage of
Explosives Regulations 2005 and were
fined £80,000 with costs of £75,000.
The HSE Inspector commented:
Thanks to Markus Eichhorn at Nottingham
University for this reference to some
useful guidance:
http://www.extremephysiolmed.com/cont
ent/pdf/s13728-015-0041-x.pdf
Written by leading practitioners of
wilderness
medicine,
it
focusses
specifically on remote locations and
medical needs, and provides clear
guidance for the minimum levels of
medical training that should be provided
in support of such work. Looks like a
useful supplement to the guide to health
“This case reinforces the fact that
employers need to ensure all activities,
especially those that are novel or only
undertaken
infrequently,
have been
properly assessed as to the associated
hazards and risks, and that safe systems
of work are in place to effectively control
5
those risks. The worker’s injuries were life
threatening and could have been avoided
had a thorough assessment of the risks
been carried out. As the university
admitted, the task should not have been
carried out in this manner”
c) Flooding: The TUC has re-issued some
guidance
on
flooding,
given
the
experience of the past few weeks.
https://www.tuc.org.uk/workplaceissues/health-and-safety/health-andsafety-flooded-areas
http://press.hse.gov.uk/2015/universityfined-after-bomblet-explosion-seriouslyinjures-worker/
The Independent reports on the New
Year’s honours that “Neil O’Connor, a high
ranking official at the Department for
Communities and Local Government, has
been awarded a CBE “for services to fire
safety and flood resilience.”
7. Quick updates
a) Life-Work Balance: an alternative
view of flexible working: if you didn’t
see it:
http://www.theguardian.com/money/201
6/jan/02/work-life-balance-flexibleworking-can-make-you-ill-experts-say
b) Standing up for the employer:
we’ve referred to the “standing-up at
work” fad before – a half-page advert in
the Metro (I was on the tram!) by a desk
supply company claims that 15,000
offices in London have switched to
adjustable desks, and invites employers
to “Turn your place of work into a
productive, healthy and positive sit/stand
environment”. Prices start at £325, and
you get a free “support mat” to stand on.
As Peanuts’ Charlie Brown used to say
“Good grief”. Still, makes a change from
insisting that standing-up at work is a
good way to lose weight. Plenty of
information around offering alternative
views on the health risks associated with
standing up.
d)
Latest
TUC
publication
on
Wellbeing: Published just days before
Christmas, this is a revision of an earlier
document, and much the better for it.
Available for free download at
https://www.tuc.org.uk/sites/default/files
/work-and-well-being-2015.pdf and the
link is being posted on the UCU website.
e) 2016 edition of TUC Hazards at
Work manual: this is about to go to the
printers. The TUC expects it to be ready
by early April.
Reps attending a TUC
course should be able to purchase one for
a very preferential price, but Branches
can ask UCU for reimbursement of the
purchase price.
UCU continues to
recommend all Branches and LA’s have a
copy as a reference source for safety
reps. The link to the official TUC Order
Form will be circulated when it becomes
available.
John Bamford
UCU Health & Safety Advice
Contact UCU Health & Safety Advice
UCU Health & Safety Advice is provided by the Greater
Manchester Hazards Centre, and is available for 3 days each week
during extended term times. The contact person is John
Bamford: (e) jbamford@ucu.org.uk
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(t) 0161 636 7558